Sheila walked thoughtfully away down the platform after having seen her charge ensconced in a corner seat. She scratched her short blond crop. Did Harry realise just how vain Patricia Martyn-Broyd was? But then he had endured fights with writers before. Writers were considered the sc.u.m of the earth.
At a conference a week later, Harry announced, "I"m waiting for Jamie Gallagher. He"ll be main scriptwriter. I gave him the book. He"ll be coming along to let us know what he can do with it."
"I wouldn"t have thought he was at all suitable," suggested Sheila. "Not for a detective series."
"BBC Scotland likes his work, and if we want them to put up any money for this, we"d better give "em what they want," said Harry.
The door opened and Jamie Gallagher came in. He was a tall man wearing a donkey jacket and a Greek fisherman"s hat. He had a few days of stubble on his chin. He had greasy brown hair which he wore combed forward to hide his receding hairline. He was a heavy drinker, and his face was crisscrossed with broken veins. It looked like an ordnance survey map.
He threw a tattered copy of Patricia"s book down on the table and demanded truculently, "What is this s.h.i.te?"
"Well, s.h.i.te, actually," said Harry cheerfully, "but we need you to bring all that genius of yours to it."
Jamie sat down and scowled all around. He was battling between the joys of exercising his monumental ego on the one hand and remembering that he was currently unemployed on the other.
"What you need to do is take the framework of the plot, all those tides and things," said Fiona, "and then add some spice."
After a long harangue about the English in general and Patricia"s writing in particular, Jamie said, "But I could do it this way. You say we"ll get Penelope Gates? Right. You want the sixties feel. Lots of sixties songs. In the books, Lady Harriet is middle-aged. I say, let"s make her young and hip. I know, runs a commune in that castle of hers. Bit of pot. Love interest."
"In the book," said Sheila, "it"s Major Derwent."
"Let"s see," said Jamie, ignoring her, "we"ll have a Highland police inspector, real chauvinist pig. And our Harriet seduces him and gets information about the case out of him. Lots of s.h.a.gging in the heather."
"We won"t get the family slot on Sunday night," said Fiona cautiously.
Jamie snorted. "We"ll get it, all right. Who the h.e.l.l is going to object to pot smoking these days? No full frontal, either, just a flash of thigh and a bit of b.o.o.b."
Sheila let her mind drift off. Poor Patricia up in the Highlands, dreaming of glory. What on earth would she think when she saw the result? The air about Sheila was blue with four-letter words, but she had become accustomed to bleeping them out. Someone had once said that you could always tell what people were afraid of by the swear words they used.
After six months Patricia began to become anxious. What if nothing happened? Pheasant Books had not phoned her, and she was too proud and at the same time too afraid of rejection to phone them. She had not heard from her old publisher, either.
The Highlands were in the grip of deep midwinter. There was hardly any daylight, and she seemed to be living in a long tunnel of perpetual night.
She began to regret that she had not furthered her friendship with that policeman over in Lochdubh. It would have been someone to talk to. She had diligently tried to write again, but somehow the words would not come.
At last she phoned the police station in Lochdubh. When Hamish answered, she said, "This is Patricia Martyn-Broyd. Do you remember me?"
"Oh, yes, you stood me up," said Hamish cheerfully.
"I am sorry, but you see..." She told Hamish all about the television deal, ending with a cautious, "Perhaps you might be free for dinner tomorrow night?"
"Aye, that would be grand," said Hamish. "That Italian restaurant?"
"I will see you there at eight," said Patricia.
But on the following day, the outside world burst in on Patricia"s seclusion. Harry Frame phoned to tell her he had gotten funding for the series.
"From the BBC?" asked Patricia eagerly.
"Yes," said Harry, "BBC Scotland."
"Not national?"
"Oh, it will go national all right," Harry gave his beefy laugh. "The fact that we"re going to dramatise your books has already been in some of the papers. Haven"t you seen anything?"
Patricia took The Times The Times, but she only read the obituaries and did the crossword. She wondered, however, why no reporter had contacted her.
"We"re sending you the contracts," said Harry. "You should get them tomorrow."
Then Pheasant Books phoned to say they would like to publish The Case of the Rising Tides The Case of the Rising Tides to coincide with the start of the television series. They offered a dismal amount of money, but Patricia was too happy to care. She took a deep breath and said she would travel down to London immediately to sign the contract. to coincide with the start of the television series. They offered a dismal amount of money, but Patricia was too happy to care. She took a deep breath and said she would travel down to London immediately to sign the contract.
She packed quickly and drove down to Inverness to catch the London train.
Hamish Macbeth sat alone in the restaurant that evening. Crazy old bat, he thought.
CHAPTER TWO.
Oh! how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring! -Colley Gibber -Colley Gibber Penelope Gates stood for a moment at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the flat she shared with her husband. She wondered for the umpteenth time why she had been stupid enough to get married. No one got married these days. Her husband, Josh, was an out-of-work actor and bitter with it. To justify his existence, he had lately taken to acting as a sort of business manager, criticising her scripts and performance. They had first met when both were students at the Royal College of Dramatic Art in Glasgow. It had been a heady three-week romance followed by a wedding.
The first rows had begun when Penelope had acted in a television series as a rape victim. Josh, when he got drunk, which was frequently, accused her of being a s.l.u.t. Only the fact that he liked the money she earned from subsequent and similar roles had stopped him from outright violence, had stopped him from "damaging the goods." But the last time, he had extracted a promise from her that she would never take her clothes off on screen again, and, anything for a quiet life, thought Penelope bleakly, she had promised. Maybe she could get away with it this time. She nervously thumbed the script of The Case of the Rising Tides The Case of the Rising Tides. She was not totally totally naked in any scene. naked in any scene.
Penelope went upstairs and opened the door. "Josh!" she called. "I"ve got a great part."
His voice sounded from the kitchen, slightly slurred. "What filth are you going to act in now?"
"Not filth," said Penelope. "Sunday night viewing. Detective series." She had thrust the script into her briefcase on the road to the kitchen. She took out a battered copy of The Case of the Rising Tides The Case of the Rising Tides and handed it to him. "It"s based on this." and handed it to him. "It"s based on this."
He took it and scowled down at it. After this, I"ll have enough money to run away, thought Penelope. What did I ever see in him?
Josh was a heavyset young man with thick black hair and a square, handsome face, but one that was becoming blurred with drink. His mouth seemed set in a permanent sneer.
She made herself a cup of tea and stood by the window, cradling the cup in her hands. A flock of pigeons soared up into the windy sky above Great Western Road. Women"s lib was a farce, she thought. Women were not as strong as men, whatever anyone said. Again she felt trapped, suffocated.
At last she heard Josh"s voice behind her, mollified, almost gentle. "Aye, it looks as if you"ve hit the jackpot this time, la.s.s. It"s a wee bittie oldfashioned. I"ve only read the first few pages. Are you playing this Lady Harriet?"
"Yes, the main part," said Penelope, turning around.
"It could be like that Miss Marple," said Josh, his eyes glowing. "It could run forever. Got the script?"
"They"re so frightened of the opposition that they lock the scripts up at Strathclyde Television," lied Penelope.
"I"m happy for you," said Josh, "and you should be happy for yourself. I"m telling you, la.s.s, if you"d bared your body on another show, I"d have strangled you." His eyes gleamed wetly with threat and drink.
Penelope gave a nervous little laugh. "You don"t mean that."
"Don"t I just. Let"s go out and celebrate. What"s the location?"
"I don"t know yet. They"re up in the Highlands looking for one."
The Strathclyde Television van cruised slowly through the snowy roads of Sutherland. It was not actually snowing, but a vicious wind was blowing little blizzards across their vision from the snowy fields on either side of the road, where occasionally the humped figures of sheep could be seen.
"Why this far north?" asked Fiona King from the depths of a down-padded jacket. "I still say we could have found somewhere out in the Trossachs, about half an hour"s drive from Glasgow."
"Loch Lomond"s too crowded, and you"d have too many tourists gawking," said Jamie Gallagher. He, Fiona and Sheila had been sent out to choose a location. They had zigzagged across Scotland on their way up. Fiona and Sheila had thought they had found various good locations, but Jamie had turned them all down. And as he was the favoured one with BBC Scotland, they both knew they had to let him make the final choice.
Sheila was driving. She was tired and worried about the state of the roads, worried about skidding into a drift. It was such a bleak, white landscape.
And then the wind suddenly dropped. Up ahead of her on the winding road, a shaft of sunlight struck down. She fished out a pair of sungla.s.ses and put them on to protect her eyes against the glare.
"There"s a village down there," she said. "Let"s stop for something. I could do with a cup of tea."
"We"ll see," said Jamie huffily. "But remember your job"s to look for a location."
"It"s called Lochdubh," said Sheila, reading the sign. "Oh, this might do."
She swung the large van over a hump-backed bridge.
Snowy Lochdubh lay spread out before them in the winter sunlight. A line of small cottages faced the waterfront. There was a harbour and a square grey church, and above the village soared two enormous mountains.
"There"s a police station," said Jamie. "Pull up there, Sheila."
"Why?"
"Just do as you"re told!"
Sheila pulled up beside the police station. They all got down.
"There"s someone in the kitchen," said Jamie. He knocked on the door.
A tall, red-haired man answered the door, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. He was wearing an old blue wool sweater over a checked shirt, but his thick trousers were regulation black, as were his large boots.
"Are you the policeman?" asked Jamie.
"Aye, I"m Hamish Macbeth. What brings you?"
"Can we come in?" Jamie asked, shivering. "It"s d.a.m.n cold."
"Come ben." Hamish turned and led the way through to his living room. "Would you like tea or coffee?"
Sheila smiled. "That would be lovely. Coffee, please."
"Forget it," snarled Jamie. "We"ve business here."
"Let"s have it, then," said Hamish, taking a dislike to him.
"We"re from Strathclyde Television, and we"re up here looking for a location. We"re filming a detective series."
"That would be Miss Martyn-Broyd"s book," said Hamish. "What about here? You won"t find a prettier place."
"Not right. Too bourgeois," said Jamie.
Hamish raised his eyebrows. "I havenae heard that word in years. How much time have you spent in Lochdubh?"
"We"ve just arrived."
"Snap judgment?"
"I always make snap judgments," said Jamie. "I can get the feel and smell o" a place in one minute flat."
"We"ve a lot in common," said Hamish Macbeth. "I can get the smell and feel o" a person in one minute flat."
He took out a handkerchief and held it to his nose. Sheila suppressed a grin.
"So why we"re here is to find out if you"ve any suggestions."
"I can"t think without a cup of coffee," said Hamish amiably. "I"ll get you one while I"m at it, Miss...?"
"Sheila. Sheila Burford. I"ll come and help you."
She followed him through to the kitchen. "Look," said Sheila urgently, "think of something. I"ve been driving and driving."
"Who is he? The producer?"
"No, the scriptwriter. Fiona"s the producer."
"So how come he"s calling the shots?"
"BBC Scotland are funding it, and Jamie"s their favourite scriptwriter."
"I"m surprised somebody loves him," said Hamish dryly. "Do you think thon Fiona-woman would like a cup?"
"No, she crawls to Jamie," said Sheila, wondering why she was chatting so openly with a Highland policeman.
He handed her a mug of coffee. "I"ll see what I can do."
They returned to the living room.
Hamish sat down and smiled sweetly at Jamie. "I believe I haff chust thought of the very place for you."
Sheila was to learn that the sudden sibilancy of Hamish"s Highland accent meant he was annoyed or upset.
"Where"s that?" asked Jamie.